You know, things were going well for this game (narratively speaking. No comment on your issues). Now, I seem to be having a lot of moments where I say “What the fuck?” Last night I played one quest and, well, what the fuck?

It was the one with the French artist.

That one.

What in the actual fuck?

Was that supposed to be a witty aside? A part where we see that Arthur really is a nice guy? A…what? WHAT? What the fuck?

I mean, there was even missable NPC banter where someone is buying a purple flower from a vendor and asks for something “gayer.”

I can’t even. You start.

Feminina:

Dude, I don’t know. I was a bit baffled as well. The best I can come up with is that it’s maybe some kind of comparison with the gang? Because it’s interesting that Dutch’s big plan was the tropics, and the artist–Charles Chatenay?–is also planning to escape to the tropics. They’re all running from things, trying to get away from people who want to beat them up and/or kill them for their offenses against decent society, and they’ve hit on the same brilliant idea.

And clearly, Arthur and Dutch and Bill JUST got back from a tropical island where they basically did nothing but get shot at, and it wasn’t at all what Dutch wanted from the tropical experience. And maybe that will also happen for our artist friend, but maybe it will work out better for him, in which case maybe it shows that Dutch is the wrong kind of person to want to flee to the tropics, or he wants to flee for the wrong reasons, or something.

Because the artist at least mentions the glorious light, right? Great for his art. So he has some actual thing to look forward to there (however nebulous), while Dutch ONLY has a vague dream of someplace where he can be out of reach of the law. Oh–and live like a king! Which is another notable difference between them: the artist isn’t bothered with amassing a fortune before he leaves, he just hops on a boat and goes.

None of the gang really seem to buy into Dutch’s Tahiti scheme, and maybe this bit is just pointing out that it’s not that the plan is impossible, it’s just that no one–not even Dutch himself–actually believes it. If they believed in it, if they really wanted it, they could just get on a boat and do it!–but they don’t. If Dutch really believed in it, he could just say “let’s go now and make the money later!”–but he doesn’t. It’s a fantasy goal for him, something to do in some vague future after the big score, and I think even he doesn’t really think it’s ever going to happen. It’s just something to keep people (himself included, maybe) looking ahead.

Butch:

True. But I got the sense that the artist knew as much about the light in Tahiti as Dutch knows about mangoes. Dutch knows there are mangoes in Tahiti! This dude knows there’s light in Tahiti! But neither has seen it, right?

Well, another difference between the artist and Dutch is that the artist seems to want to “win” someday. He knows when to say “Ok, my luck’s run out here, on to the next thing!” Dutch, money aside, living like kings aside, wants to “win.” He wants to prove something HERE. The artist, he just says “Ok, they’re not gonna get it here. Bye.” Dutch wants to say “fuck ’em all, I’m better.” There’s that whole conversation where Dutch is playing chess in his head. He keeps saying “I haven’t played my hand yet.” He even says that “maybe life isn’t worth clinging to” if he doesn’t. He’s stopped caring about money, about the people who follow him, about dreams, policy, everything, really, but winning against his perceived enemies. He wants to get so tired of winning….winning bigly….

Sorry. Metaphor crept in.

But ok….. even we’re right about everything we’re saying…. why make that point with the artist in drag (and not just drag, drag in a caricature of a Chinese person), flirting and kissing Arthur? (His reaction to that was pretty priceless.) That seemed to be a…confusing choice.

Feminina:

The Chinese drag and the flirting…I got nothing. I mean, maybe it’s supposed to be a sign of how free-spirited and bohemian the guy is, or something–he’s so free from convention! He doesn’t mind playing a gender-bending role!

On the other hand, guys dressing up as women (often badly) to escape from things or confuse enemies has a long history (usually humorous) in narrative of every kind. How often did Bugs Bunny end up in drag? It might be drawing on those traditions, as much as it’s saying something to us with our specific concepts of gender-bending.

Sometimes a man dresses up like a woman. It’s usually hilarious! Don’t overthink it.

That’s what we could say about this if it were actually a product of the earlier time it depicts.

Given that it’s in fact a product of the highly gender-aware times in which we live today…I don’t know. I just don’t know, man.

Butch:

I don’t either, dude. Especially as they set that character up as hyper straight! Wasn’t he banging everyone’s wives? Even with that, sex and gender wasn’t what his story arc was even about. We talked about art and accepting the future and all that. And now….what?

Just plain weird.

I seem to be saying that a lot with this game. Which, its flaws aside, was not something we were saying when we complained about it.

I dunno. I’ll go rescue John or something. Maybe it will get back on the beam.

Feminina:

Art, and the future, and offending human decency. Which dressing up as a woman when you’re actually a man certainly does! The horror of it!

I mean, it certainly underlined that he does care about being a member of “proper” society. I think we already knew that, but…now we definitely do.

But yeah, beyond that, I don’t know. I agree that the game around this point is making a lot of “WTF is that about?” moves. Whether or not it comes back around to well-crafted and meaningful narrative–we shall discuss in time.

Butch:

I’m certain we will.

Doesn’t stay this weird, does it?

Feminina:

Noooo…it does other things, but the flat-out weird is lessened. Until you meet the traveling sideshow folk, anyway.

Butch:

That wasn’t a very emphatic no.

Feminina:

Yeah, I’ll be honest with you, I’m still kind of thinking “what the hell is this about, game?” It’s not WEIRD, exactly, like every person on screen is now in yellowface and drag or anything (thankfully), but it’s…I don’t know. I’m just not sure what it’s about.

We’ll talk later.

Butch:

I dunno, man. Everyone just doing a drag show would be kinda cool. Everyone just puts down their guns, sits down for a John Waters film fest, then has the dress ball to end all dress balls.

Feminina:

Hey, I’d be all for a fancy dress ball with everyone in drag, actually. That could be a good time.

That’s not the kind of time I’m having, though. No, I’m just getting taunted with corpses I can’t loot.

It’s conference day. The younger two had no school. Mrs. McP stayed home. Junior disliked that two of them stayed home with mommy. Absolute CHAOS descended. Worst morning we’ve had in a long time, and that, Femmy, THAT is saying something.

So I got nothing. For now.

Because dammit, I put in enough patient, diplomatic psychiatry that I have earned some time off. And Mrs. McP took the kids for ice cream.

So, now that it’s finally quiet, I’m gonna drink this coffee here, maybe another cup, and then I’m going to play motherfucking video games.

Oh, dude, I’m sorry. Have some coffee. Shoot some Pinkertons. The world will look brighter.

I played some. Heaved a sigh of “this freaking game,” more in weary exasperation than white-hot rage. It’s just actively messing with me in terms of looting at this point.

I was on a bounty (don’t ask), got through one gunfight, had to ride off with someone to chase the escaped bounty to the next gunfight. Person is all “mount up, let’s go!”

I thought “but all these bodies left after that gunfight! I shall first loot them.” Looted them. Then went to get on my horse to follow the other person, already on horseback and waiting impatiently, and my own horse was WAY THE FRACK OUT OF SIGHT for some reason. Didn’t come when I whistled. I tried to walk toward it and “FAIL: your companion was abandoned.”

I abandoned no one! I was looting corpses 30 feet away from that person at all times! My freaking horse abandoned ME!

And this at a time when, for reasons you will understand presently, I actually need money. I WANTED that $1.67 I got from that corpse! I have an $800 debt to pay off!

Sigh. This freaking game. I just exasperation-quit and went to bed.

Butch:

The fact you said that is laced with irony. Here’s why.

I did just shoot some pinkertoms. I did. And now I’m in the swamp about to talk to Dutch. But you know how that was in the dark and the fog and the smoke? Of course you do. And you know how I have that big front window across from the TV? Of course you do.

My day was so bright I mostly peered at a reflection of my window and said “What’s happening? WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Indeed, I’m writing cuz I have no idea if I missed plot points. Notably:

Is Milton dead? Was he one of the guys I shot in dead eye there? He’s a major character, and I have no idea if I just killed him.

The world did, indeed, look brighter.

Looting: Dude. Dude. What have we learned? We have learned that the Xs are a lie. They are there simply to troll you. We know this. We do not stop when there’s some other shit to do. We do not.

Just like we shouldn’t play a night scene during the day.

God, we’re dumb.

Gotta say, I’m kinda surprised. My life has been so chaotic, you being so ahead of me last week and having a wonderful weekend of play time (which usually puts you WAY ahead of me), I thought for sure you had seen credits roll.

Feminina:

Sigh. What hopeless fools we are.

I thought I might have seen credits too! But NOOOOOOOOO. Instead I’m racking up debt and…well, we’ll talk later. Stupid taunting corpses. To make matters even worse, the last set of corpses I DID get a chance to loot had no cash! Nothing but tonics and random herbs!

This game is totally trolling us with the corpses. I should know better. You’re right.

You did not kill Milton. You killed a bunch of random Pinkertons, and I wasn’t sure whether he’d been among them or not either, because even without a large bright window reflecting off the screen it was hard to tell exactly who was getting shot in that gunfight, but I surmised that he had lived when he turned up again later. Usually pretty solid evidence.

Butch:

Yeah, that’s a tip off. The not being dead thing.

At the very least we can pick up ammo without looting. Imagine if you had to loot to get ammo. Giving us that FPS “Just run over it” thing is a mercy, that it is.

You don’t carry herbs around just in case you get shot? I do.

Oh, and totally called the TB. He’s coughing all the time.

Ok, Chapter six.

And….confession. I….skipped a checkpoint.

It wasn’t my fault! That Murfree bullshit. Once again, a shootout at night when I had glare! And them one shot killing me! And fuck that!

So what did I miss? I picked it up when I was letting a woman out of a cage.

Still haven’t digested themes. Like, what? We’re worse monsters because we killed our own and they killed other people?

I’ll miss Molly. She was cool. Though her being a rat wasn’t really that much of a twist. I guess the twist was no twist.

Here I am, playing, and asking you for the cliff notes.

Feminina:

You called it, man!

Ah, the Murfrees. What a bunch of cartoonishly villainous weirdos, with those dismembered bodies and the girl in a cage and all. I wasn’t really sure if they were trying to make a point, or just being a convenient means of saying “you don’t have to feel bad about killing them to take their cave, plus this explains why no one will come after you right away.”

I mean, what was with the girl in a cage, other than “these people are horrific monsters”? And to give Arthur a chance to get some honor points by taking her back to town, I guess.

I suppose it could be about us being worse monsters…but I don’t know. Is it us killing “our own” if our own is a filthy rat? Are we worse monsters for protecting ourselves by killing a traitor, than they are for preying on random innocents passing by? I honestly didn’t get that message from it.

I do regularly give thanks for being able to pick up ammo just by running over it. That saves me from certain death by lack of ammo pretty much all the time, since I never buy any.

Butch:

I called it. That I did.

You know, this game, which you must admit is pretty well written, isn’t all that great at hiding its cards re plot twists. For example, I will not be surprised is Micah is a baddie, too. Molly can’t be the only traitor. Too easy. And there’s no obvious reason for Dutch to be gushing about Micah except to set up a “You…..YOU betrayed me?” scene later.

I can’t figure out if all this telegraphing is intentional or not. We’ve seen lots of stories set up plot “twists” rather clumsily before. That said, this game is a) a prequel, in which plot twists are not always something that’s possible and b) a game about the inevitable decline of a way of life. When you’re telling an inevitable story, maybe you don’t really want “twists.” Having players say “Well, that’s obviously gonna suck later” in a game about inevitable doom might just be the game giving itself the chance to nod sagely and say “Yup, sure is.”

Ok, good, I didn’t miss anything by skipping ahead.

It still was annoying. First the game turns into Raiders of Uncharted Tombs, then it spent this mission turning into a zombie game (cuz let’s face it, waves of one hit kill growling folks who are doing whatever to dead bodies is close enough to zombies to be zombies). What’s next, aliens land?

And why isn’t the law coming? They’re just a bunch of weirdos. A gatling gun should take care of them, right? Ah, well. Sometimes you have to suspend disbelief.

See, I think there’s some metaphor there. As the…shall we say…traditionalists get more desperate and crazier in this country, they, or at least their leadership, seems to care more and more about “loyalty,” and a uniform adherence to the group/cause/leader/whatever. You did something outside the ideals of tradition? DISLOYAL! Challenge them in a primary or something! Who cares what they did in the past!

Neither do I pick up ammo. I’ve never needed to, thanks to the ability to run over it.

And I’m still using Flacco’s gun.

Feminina:

Oh, don’t worry, there are more personality changes to come. What I’m doing right now…

You’re gonna love it. Possibly.

It’s definitely true that Molly’s summary execution does speak to the gang’s growing shakiness as a unit. They’re defined more and more by their unswerving loyalty to Dutch, and less by, you know, living together and getting along as a family, with some disagreement but a basic level of common interest. In the beginning, they seemed to basically like each other, for the most part, but now suspicion has crept in. That rarely ends well.

“Turn on anyone who doesn’t conform! Shoot now and ask questions never!”

And maybe that’s part of what that recent bit of plot was all about, too–we wondered why the game made a point of that last disaster being Hosea’s more sensible plan, rather than one of Dutch’s reckless schemes.

Maybe it’s because in Dutch’s mind, now, he tried listening to someone else, and look how it turned out! All the more reason to take no one else’s opinion into consideration and make it all about him from now on. Obviously, anyone who disagrees wants more of that whole debacle! I.e., treason.

Butch:

As long as it isn’t aliens. That would be silly.

But hey, if they want to go down a random video game road, I wouldn’t mind a hot sorceress or two….

Well, her “betrayal” came of suspicion, right? She kept saying “I loved you, I loved you,” and, we can assume, he did something to betray that love. It all happened because love turned to suspicion.

You know, one way the game didn’t tip its hand was never letting us know what Molly was going to talk about during her “mission.” Remember that? “Molly needs to speak to you,” you go, she’s all hush hush, I need your help, and Bill and Uncle show up and hijack the whole thing and you go rob a stage coach. The game left that alone.

Unless I find out more later. Do I find out more later?

And treason…Except Dutch didn’t shoot her. He had his gun out, sure, but he didn’t pull the trigger, he didn’t scold Arthur for arguing to leave her alone, he didn’t say “get that body out of here and burn it.” So maybe it is in his mind, and I’ll learn more when I boot it up, but it wasn’t him that did all that. It was someone who bought into his cult of personality.

Feminina:

Well, many cultish leaders don’t do the hard work of executing traitorous followers themselves. How much better to let other, loyal members do it, thus both proving their loyalty to you, and demonstrating loyal solidarity with you to other members who might be wavering.

Though I agree, Dutch wasn’t all “off with her head!” here–he seemed to be wavering himself. Maybe Miss Grimshaw meant to shore up his own resolve, as much as that of the other gang members. “Look, boss, you know what needs to be done but you were sweet on this girl once so you might not like to do it–let me help you out.”

Sometime cultish followers need to give cultish leaders a push to ensure they stick with the dream.

As for Molly…no more that I’ve ever learned. She took her secrets to the grave. Along with Miss Grimshaw’s bullets.

Butch:

Oh, I agree Grimshaw was trying to shore up Dutch’s resolve. That’s an interesting ying and yang, as well. Dutch is beloved. Grimshaw is the least liked one of the gang. Everyone is always complaining about her. Even Arthur doesn’t seem to like her very much. Yet, here she is buttressing the leader that is so beloved.

Hmm.

Feminina:

Dutch is the charming face of the gang, with all the big ideas, but Miss Grimshaw is the administrator who actually makes the camp run. Every time you get to a new camp, Dutch is saying “Miss Grimshaw, get things set up.” Or when everyone has to flee in a hurry, it’s Miss Grimshaw who makes sure it happens.

Nobody likes her because she’s the one responsible for making everyone do their boring, around-the-camp jobs, and probably for telling them no, they can’t have something or other that they want because we can’t afford it. Everyone likes Dutch, because he’s responsible for making everybody feel great (or at least OK) about living in the dirt eating stew, and for reassuring them that in the future they’ll be able to afford whatever they want.

Nobody appreciates the quartermaster, but the whole thing would fall to pieces without her. Obviously she’s the one who steps up to take care of business when someone needs executing.

Butch:

True. But before I stopped playing I did hear someone calling her a murderer. That’s more than “man, she does make me work hard.” That’s getting to the point where people are thinking she’s crossing very bright lines, not just doing what needs to be done.

Feminina:

Which I think is another symptom of how everything is coming apart. Once upon a time, she wouldn’t be in the position of making these calls, and then everyone would complain about her but recognize she was doing important work.

Once upon a time Dutch wouldn’t have been in the position of worrying about the loyalty of everyone around him.

But those days are gone, and now here we are. Executing each other and muttering behind each others’ backs about how Dutch is losing it, and Miss Grimshaw is a murderer.

Butch:

And we’re kinda left to wonder why. Dutch’s change happened before we met him. We can’t blame the death of Hosea, or anything like that.

Maybe it’s just the simple fact that every way of life ends, eventually.

Feminina:

Yeah…the world has changed, and they’re not adapting. Which is also, perhaps, partly because they’re older and don’t have the flexibility of youth that might let them adapt to the new age. So no doubt it’s about the approaching end of Dutch’s individual life, as well as about the end of this way of life he cherishes.

Interesting that Strauss, who is certainly not young, has in fact adapted better than the rest. But maybe we’re meant to assume he’s just from a money-grubbing city culture that doesn’t HAVE to adapt, because it’s what’s taking over.

Butch:

Are we accusing the game of saying “Immigration is bad?” We haven’t seen too many sympathetic people from “away.” Javier comes the closest, but still.

Feminina:

Hm. It’s a fair questions, but I think it’s not as simple as that. Because, as we are reminded by the interactions with the Indians, the gang (with the exception of half of Charles) also represent immigration. I’m still pondering the game’s treatment of Indians, and I’m not sure if I feel it did a great job with the subject or not, but I will say that there’s more material to come and that they didn’t just ignore it. And since they acknowledged the fact that this country all belonged to the Indians (not very long ago–people are actively being moved to reservations and treaties are actively being broken in the time frame of the game), they’re also acknowledging that every non-Indian here is from elsewhere.

I think certainly the game could be saying ‘immigration is bad for people who were in the area already,’ because immigration was inarguably very bad for the Indians, and now this newer wave of immigration is somewhat-more-arguably bad for the people who had immigrated previously. (At least people like the gang.)

But to say that immigration in principle, that moving into a new place for the sake of new opportunities, is inherently bad, would by implication be saying that the gang, and all the people in all the little towns, and all of US westward expansion (indeed, the entire European colonization of the New World) was also bad.

And there’s certainly an argument to be made for that, but it’s one that requires writing so much alternate history that I think it’s a bit beyond the scope of this game. So…I guess I don’t think it’s saying ‘immigration is bad.’ The recency of residence of 95% of the white people in the west makes that too awkward.

I think maybe it’s saying every new wave coming in–of people, of culture, of civilization, of technological development–is going to be hard for the existing culture/society/people to handle. Immigrants are an obvious representation of a new wave, but I don’t think they’re bad in and of themselves, in the game, I think they’re just another symbol of the challenges of the future.

And indeed, to Arthur and the gang, the future itself is seen as kind of a bad thing, but I think the game isn’t necessarily agreeing with them. It’s not saying “these guys are heroes, fighting for a heroic way of life that is being tragically lost, and things would be better today if we still lived like that!”

Sometimes I don’t get this game. Not metaphorically, of course. I get that. I just don’t get some of the things it does.

Usually, this game farts and we get 3000 words out of it. We’ve blogged on its load screens. Load screens! But last night…last night I don’t get.

I played a lot last night. A LOT. Couple hours. By the save thingy on the save screen I did four percent of the game. FOUR PERCENT! We’ve spent all day on .4%! Four percent should give us bloggage for the rest of the week! More!

And yet, I have very little to say about last night. Some. For example, I could say “Well, that was sure a lot of shooty shooty.” I could say that. I will say that. That was sure a lot of shooty shooty.

Past that? Uh…… Hmm…… Well…….

And I stopped when I got to Lackay and Milton showed up cuz I was SO tired of shooty shooty. Didn’t shoot at Milton. Too much shooty shooty.

I mean, what the hell? For four percent of the game, it had a mid life crisis and turned into Raiding Uncharted Tombs. Running around tropical islands slaughtering Kevin with dudes with accents. There was even shimmying!

Did you get anything out of that other than “What the hell?”

It’s not that it was bad shooty shooty. It wasn’t. It was rather exciting, in a shooty shooty way. But what the hell was that doing in this game at that point?

And why did I have to push L to walk away from it?

Weird.

One thing I really, REALLY did like was getting dropped off so far away and the long, long ride back to Shady Belle. I was wondering why they plopped me there, but that song, the first song with words, “I stand unshaken,” besides being a good song, really worked as you ride through mud and dark and this plain, depressing color palate after being in the sun and the tropics.

But if they wanted to show how America is this bland, dark, sad, muddy mess vs. “paradise,” maybe they shouldn’t have put so many Kevins in “paradise.” That was hardly paradise, colors or no.

Feminina:

I’m with you, dude. What the hell WAS that?

Best I can figure, it was a “even in the tropical paradise Dutch wants to escape to, things are actually pretty bad” moment, but…did we really need all that shooting to let us know that Tahiti probably isn’t going to work out? I mean, we knew that. Honest, game. We got it.

It was also an opportunity for our gang to do some good for someone (definitely let’s fight the slaveholders!), and for Arthur to be reminded once again that Dutch is not just a charming rogue with big ideas…he’s also a guy who’s willing to beat an old lady to death because she asks for more money.

So maybe it was just showing ARTHUR some things WE already pretty much knew? Except I feel like he also pretty much knew these things. He hasn’t been all champing at the bit saying “yeah, Tahiti’s going to be great, that’s where it’s all going to come together for us!”

But yeah, man, it was a weird interlude, and it was hard to tell exactly what they were trying to do with it.

Butch:

Did you even get the trap? I fell into a trap the first time I tried to find Dutch. This led to waves and WAVES of Kevin. Endless Kevin. So endless I took a chance and died on purpose just to see if it was the trap that spawned them. I think it was, cuz after that, no Kevin.

I was shooting all night.

Yes, game, we got it.

And Yyeah, the Dutch thing was unsettling. It certainly made us, and Arthur, dislike Dutch, which must be a plot point. Arthur even says “You gonna strangle me next?”

Very weird. Unless they just got to that point and said “You know? Game with guns, we gotta have some shooty, and we haven’t had much shooty.” Though, gotta say, even before this the game was getting shootier. I’m kinda not into that.

At least tell me you noticed the song and how well that worked.

Even if, after it, there was more shooty.

Feminina:

I don’t remember a trap while trying to find Dutch. Maybe I avoided it through sheer luck.

And I did notice the song, and…it…worked OK. Certainly very atmospheric.

I don’t know, I honestly found it maybe a bit over the top? I mean, definite props for writing a whole song for the game with actual lyrics and everything, and it fit in very nicely with the mood and all, I guess, but…I don’t know, maybe I was just tired and grouchy, but I felt like “great, here’s a hyper-consciously cinematic bit with a moody dude singing voiceover so I can slowly ponder what the hell that was that just happened and didn’t make any sense.” I don’t know. Seemed to be laying it on a bit thick, is all.

But definitely well constructed. And I suppose when the character is as gruff and unemotive as Arthur, you have to bring in a voicever to stand in for his emotional moments.

Butch:

The trap was at the end of a road to nowhere. I think it was a device that was “Don’t go there” kinda deal. But game, there are other ways to do that than recreating the end of Butch and the Sundance Kid.

Utterly frustrating.

Dude, you must’ve been tired and grouchy. Though it was a little self conscious, I’ll give you that.

You were probably just grouchy cuz you were thinking “great, Butch is gonna want to talk about music and this is so obvious I can’t claim to have missed it.”

Feminina:

I got grouchier when there was another bunch of shooty-shooty at the end of it. Not to give anything away.

Butch:

Oh, I know. Milton just showed up with a gatling gun. That’s when I said “Oh HELL no,” turned it off, and had some booze.

Feminina:

A wise choice.

That was a lot of shooting. Gatling guns are just messy. Obviously, if you can get your own hands on it that’s useful, but it’s no fun to have it pointed at you.

There’s another big musical/riding bit later and I’m already waiting to discuss it with you! Although you will have way more to say, and I barely would have even heard it if I didn’t know I’d have to discuss it with you.

Kidding…slightly.

It’s gonna be great.

Butch:

I’d call that progress!

Watch: someday lady Gaga will be in a game and then I won’t be able to shut you up.

Feminina:

This is true, you would not. Because Lady Gaga is awesome! D’Angelo is just some moody dude. I mean, I got nothing against him. But he’s no Lady Gaga.

Well, gotta say, knew that that robbery was gonna go bad. That wasn’t a surprise. And, gotta say, wasn’t surprised about poor Lenny. Generally, it’s never a good idea to be the young, interesting, black guy who the semi-tragic hero befriends. That never ends well. I was sorta surprised by the Hosea thing, more on that in a second.

But as for surprise…..winding up on a island. I did not expect to wind up on an island. No sirree. I have no idea what to make of this yet. None. The long walk there? Where all you could do was walk? In the cinematic camera? What the hell was that?

Anyway, I just got to the camp with the Haitian dude.

I’m not sure all this is really happening. I’m suspecting a dream sequence.

But first….Hosea.

I’m not that surprised that he got killed. Offing the father/mentor figure at about this point in the narrative is nothing new. It’s a tried and true plot device. What surprised me was that he got killed because Dutch followed HIS plan. The day thing was Hosea’s idea. Dutch was the one who needed to be convinced. I was pretty certain that when Hosea got killed it would be Dutch’s fault, or more so Dutch’s fault, as pretty much everything is Dutch’s fault. Hosea, the voice of cautious reason, going down because of one his own ideas, his cautious, reasonable ideas, was an interesting narrative choice. Not sure why they did that.

And second, Dutch.

We talked a couple days ago about how Arthur treats his horse, and I mentioned that the only time Arthur really says “Sorry” is to his horse. I noticed, last night, that Dutch says “I’m sorry” all the damn time. That said, when he says it, he sounds full of shit, more full of shit than he usually sounds. It’s almost as if he’s using the appearance of guilt as a way to humanize himself and manipulate others. But even though he appears to be full of shit when he’s saying sorry, I’m not sure he is without guilt. Do you?

It’s odd, given the metaphor. Dutch is running a cult of personality that is hell bent on preserving a doomed way of life. I can think of someone like that in real life, and the real life version seems completely incapable of guilt and refuses to ever, EVER say he’s sorry for anything. Dutch isn’t like that. Or is he? I can’t tell.

Poor Lenny.

Feminina:

LENNNNNNNNNNYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh. And Hosea too, but we have a longer history of yelling about Lenny.

I think the fact that this failed so spectacularly even though there was an actual plan, and it’s not just Dutch going off half-cocked as usual, kind of signifies that the whole system is bad now. Whether they do it well, or do it badly, the kind of job they’re used to being able to manage just doesn’t work anymore.

In the past, this could have been a good plan! But that’s the past. I think it’s just telling us that even though a lot of the IMMEDIATE things that are going wrong for them can be traced to Dutch’s recklessness or whatever, in the larger scheme of things they’re doomed anyway, because even a sensible, thoughtful plan will fail in the new environment of Pinkertons on every corner and so forth.

It doesn’t let Dutch off the hook, because he’s the main reason all these people are still clinging to this no-longer-functional system, but it does demonstrate that it’s not his failure alone: anyone else trying to use the old methods will run into the same problems with the future.

And yeah…that whole thing with them ending up on the island. That was a thing. We’ll talk. Later.

Butch:

We do have more history, and, while the LENNNNNY scenes were great, I think there was a writing hiccup because the game wanted us to care more for Hosea, I think. Did it? Cuz if it did, I didn’t. I liked Lenny more. Or, at the very least, as you say, I had a longer history with Lenny. That, of course, is a disconnect between player and character, though, and that’s not so good.

Hmm. I can see that being the point about this being Hosea’s plan. If even the smart, calm, rational one can’t do it, no one can.

Another interesting twist to this particular point is that the game never tells us what Dutch would have rather done. We see him all “You sure? You really sure? I dunno….” but we don’t see his counter offer. That discussion that Arthur hears isn’t them arguing about their dueling plans, it’s Hosea saying “We should do this” and Dutch saying “I dunno….” Right? Dutch isn’t even saying “C’mon, Hosea, bandannas and yippie kai ai! We don’t need all this fancy!” He’s saying….nothing. He has no ideas.

Oh, the island is certainly a thing. Not sure what yet, though.

Feminina:

I liked Hosea. I can see that the connection we’d built with him might not feel as strong, though. The stuff we did with him was a while ago and/or pretty low key (hunting, talking about his dear deceased Bessie who I totally didn’t name my horse after, fishing with him and Dutch), whereas we’ve had more recent/more active adventures with Lenny. Or even if not necessarily more recent or active, more VIVID adventures with Lenny. I mean, that one drunken evening of shouting LENNNNNNNYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! will be forever engraved on our souls. We didn’t have that with Hosea. Not his fault!

It is interesting that we don’t know what Dutch’s alternate plan was, if any. Presumably it wasn’t “let’s just skip this, it’s no good,” which would actually have been the smart way to go. But he wanted the money too badly, so I sort of felt like we were meant to assume it was the “bandannas on and let’s go!!!!” that we’ve seen from him before, even though we don’t actually know that.

But certainly if this WERE a time when Dutch was having second thoughts about the whole deal, that would be significant–it would show us that he’s capable of recognizing a bad idea (even if only someone else’s bad idea, rather than his own), and that would be a point for him in terms of his ability to survive and lead. I feel like the game really should have highlighted that for us, if that were the case, and since it didn’t…bandannas and let’s go!

But as you say, it’s interesting that the game does not choose to clarify that point for us.

Butch:

Not his fault, no. But the writers’ fault. It was one of those game things where the writers were all “Care. Care! CAAAARRRREEEE! Look! Arthur cares! So CARE!” Those never work. And I did care, but I think that was supposed to be this big shock, garment rending moment and it wasn’t. It was a “Aw, man! I liked that guy!” moment, which isn’t as punchy.

It sure didn’t choose to clarify. I’m sure his plan wasn’t “Let’s skip this,” because he sure needed/wanted the money. And he had just come off a relative success, what with getting rid of Bronte (a completely impractical success, sure, but at least he accomplished what he wanted to accomplish). One success is what counts as a roll for him!

Another thing….he said, on the boat, “We have loyalty.” I’m not sure he does. Someone mentioned that the law knew they were coming. There may well be a rat, and I’m not sure, if there is, how that impacts the metaphor.

If there is a rat, said rat is pretty stupid. Why not just say “Hey guys, shady belle. Go there?”

I guess we’ll talk. Later.

Feminina:

Definitely more “aw, man, I liked that guy!” than “LENNNNNNNYYYYYYY!!!!!!!” even though according to what we’ve been told, Lenny is pretty new and Hosea is practically Arthur’s father. Awkward. We know what they say about showing vs. telling.

We’ll definitely discuss rats more. Later.

Butch:

Figured.

Awkward, indeed. Games, even well written games, can be pretty bad at the whole show/tell thing.

I think it’s even more important to get right in games than it is in any other visual genre. The idea that “we are Arthur” means we have to feel that loss in order for it to work. It’s not enough if Arthur is acted well and he obviously feels the loss in a cutscene. To compare, I bought that Dutch was feeling the loss. For him it was a gut wrenching moment. I could buy that, even though I never saw their history, because Dutch was well acted and he wasn’t “me.”

This is not the first time we’ve had a “Care, dammit!” moment in a game. Won’t be the last.

Feminina:

Oh, there’s going to be so much more discussion about rats. It’s gonna be great.

But dude, first you enjoy that tropical island. It’s a thing. You’re gonna love it. Possibly.

Well, I got nothing past the whole gator/Bronte bit, but that’s a lot, so we can go with that.

That WAS a lot, wasn’t it? So much that I’ll do the two things I do when there’s too much for me to process:

First, I toss the ball into your court: What were your big takeaways?

Second, I ignore the massive amount of good to complain about something: I don’t think that Dutch’s flaming sword of racial justice stuff works. When he went off on Charles for calling Native Americans savages….like, ok, Dutch. I agree. Charles is wrong here. But…I dunno. I just don’t think it makes sense for him to be that angry about racism. We’ve talked about how yes, the gang is inclusive, but there’s nothing that shows that Dutch is motivated in his life to right the wrongs of society by creating a race blind utopia. He’s motivated in his life by selfishness and fear. I’m not sure what that was all about.

But ok, now that that’s off my chest, let’s talk about all the good stuff in these missions. Or, at least, the complexities.

Female:

That was a lot! Takeaways…as you say, there was a lot there about how Dutch is kind of losing touch with reality. He apparently perceives himself to be surrounded by traitors who don’t care about him, all evidence to the contrary. I wonder if maybe he’s projecting a bit: he himself is losing faith in his big ideals and his dream of freedom, and so he assumes that everyone else is too.

He’s also just sort of losing it, period. I mean, wasn’t this whole plan to seize Bronte for ransom, so they could get some of that sweet cash Dutch keeps talking about needing?

Seems like that one actually could have worked! They got Bronte! He surely still has access to a lot of money! But…kind of hard to ransom a guy you just fed to an alligator. So unlike his really-pretty-bad plan to just put on some bandannas and rob the station, THIS was an actually-OK plan that was even going well considering all that could have gone wrong with it, until he got angry with his prisoner and killed him in a fit of rage. Very poor decision from a business standpoint, Dutch. To say nothing of the moral implications of murdering a bound and helpless prisoner, which I believe is generally frowned upon in most lofty codes of ethics.

I figure that all these people aren’t hanging around with Dutch specifically because he’s insecure and can’t stick to a plan, so he must have been a lot better at leading and planning (and following his own damn plans) back in the day. Arthur is always talking about how “you said we’re not about revenge” or whatever. He was better once!

Or–which is kind of my theory, though not having actually seen him in those days, we can only speculate on this–he was just able to SEEM better when circumstances worked more in his favor. It was easier to assume the gang was loyal when things were going pretty well, so he might not have been prey to these constant fears of everyone turning on him, and when he wasn’t expressing those fears all the time he projected confidence, causing others to be more confident in him…it’s a nice feedback loop.

As you said, he cares a lot about his image, and maybe when it was easier to maintain a bold, dashing, leaderly image, he was able to stick to the role, even if he was never actually as good at it as everyone thought he was. When he looked the part, he could manage, and now that it’s harder and harder to look the part, his flaws are taking over. He held the whole thing together with the force of his personality, and now that things aren’t going well and personality isn’t quite enough…

I think its easier to believe he was mostly just good at playing a leader in better times, than that he was a genuinely good, strong, thoughtful person and a good leader, and somehow his entire character changed.

So, sadly, I’m leaning towards “Arthur has spent his entire adult life following a guy who didn’t really deserve it,” which is maybe supposed to be a bit tragic, although honestly, many (many, many) other people have done the same thing, so he probably shouldn’t feel too bad.

Butch:

Hmm. Could be he’s losing his own faith. He certainly has had questions about Tahiti that even he can’t answer.

But, well…was it really the plan? That’s what he said, sure. But Hosea didn’t buy it. I didn’t buy it. I thought this was a revenge thing all along. Maybe it started as a “We have to take him down a few pegs” and became a murder spree, but still. Dutch’s response to Hosea was things like “He owns the cops, we have to get rid of him before we do the bank” not “think of the extra money.”

Even lowly codes of ethics frown on this. John was stunned, and not very happy. “Feeding someone to an alligator? Which one of your philosophy books covers that?”

I agree about the feedback loop, and I think it fits with the overall metaphor. Things were never as good as we think they were, whether it’s something we’ve lived through our heard other people talk about second hand. I think that’s why the game doesn’t bother with flashbacks and all that. It wants us to experience the vague, likely incorrect nostalgia.

And, I definitely don’t see it as tragic. Stupid, yes. Metaphorical, yes. But not tragic.

Though there is another change in the gang, and one, I think, that also runs against his whole “tolerance” thing.

A lot of the gang is new people. Arthur and Hosea are the only ones who have been with him a long time. Sure, he seems to trust some of the new folks (including Micah to an inexplicable degree), but the rest? Less so. Even Molly, who he’s involved with. He’s suspicious because of “all these new people.”

There’s a lot of those overtones in this bit. His killing of Bronte, an immigrant, has a whole lot of “You think you’re better than me? Do you? DO YOU??? WELL, YOU’RE NOT!!!!” Disturbingly large amounts of it. Did you hear him explain why things won’t go to shit in Tahiti? He says the “problem here isn’t the land or blah blah blah. It’s men. Men who COME HERE with their [list of things that are different].” He’s asked “They don’t have men like that in Tahiti?” and Dutch replies “They do, but they feed them to sharks. They don’t make them kings.”

The emphasis on COME HERE is mine.

The idea that “My America was ideal, my life was ideal, before all these other people showed up and challenged me and my way of life” is…..timely. And out of line with someone so committed to the lives of Native Americans.

Unless it’s just illustrating privilege. Dutch can be all high and mighty about how you shouldn’t be so mean to Native Americans because Native Americans are not relevant to him. It’s like people we can picture at our lily white college who talked a very tolerant game who would be uncomfortable if a black couple moved in next door to them. Shit, we give Dutch a pass because of Charles and Lenny and Javier, but isn’t that like saying “Well, how can I be racist if I have a black friend?”

Female:

Oh, yeah, so much irony in that indignation about people who “come here and mess up our idyllic free country” spoken by a white dude in a west that’s still actively being colonized by white dudes. All those OTHER damn intruders, trying to take away what MY band of slightly-less-recent intruders is obviously plainly entitled to!

I suspect maybe the outrage about calling Native Americans ‘savage’ was in fact a cover for outrage at Bronte calling HIM savage…in his head, he and HIS group are basically the same as the Native Americans, in that both belong here in this great country and are oppressed by the law (I mean, they’ve lived here for a few thousand years and we’ve lived here for 30 years–basically the same thing).

They/we aren’t savages! How dare you say that, Charles, you stand-in for rich, pasta-eating jerks who just got here and already think they’re better than me (and also the Indians)!

It was especially strange that it was Charles who made this comment–was it definitely him? I kind of thought it was, but I don’t have the subtitles set up to show who’s speaking, so sometimes it’s still hard to tell, and I honestly would assume was meant sarcastically, given that Charles is half Indian himself, so it’s surprising that Dutch seemingly both took it at face value AND felt it was worth tearing into. Then I thought maybe it wasn’t actually Charles, maybe Bill or somebody made the comment, in which case Dutch was possibly displaying his lack of tolerance for that kind of attitude for Charles’ benefit…but you also thought it was Charles?

As you say, the whole episode was odd and I’m not really sure what to make of it.

And it’s a good point that “I have a black member in my gang!” is a bit like “I have a black friend.” It’s an interesting question, though, because I think how we judge this depends on whether we’re looking at Dutch as a person in the story in the time period, or whether we’re looking at him as a character presented to us, the players.

As a person in that time period, you have to give Dutch credit for actually being less racist than the prevailing winds, both because he doesn’t actually go around mentioning “I have a black member in my gang!” and because most of society at that time did not publicly applaud this kind of display of racial egalitarianism. The only reason for him to have black people in his gang is if he’s personally dedicated to racial equality (doubtful) or if he’s neutral on the question but finds these particular people to be useful members. And even just being neutral is in practice a step up from “black people cannot live in our white town or eat at the same campfire or share any public facilities with our whitenesses” etc. etc.

On the other hand, as a character presented to us, we can definitely say that Dutch/the game is pointing out “I have black members in my gang!” and wonder whether those black members might not only be there so that we, the players, will not think Dutch/the gang is horribly racist.

So Dutch, the character, is less racist than usual for the time period of 1899!–but the game itself may contain elements of the well-meaning/lofty/cluelessly racist time period of today. And, as you say, sometimes it can feel a bit awkward, when you’re not sure if Dutch is truly speaking in character because that’s reasonably something that person would say, or if he’s speaking for the game and saying something directed to us today.

Man, that was convoluted. I need a nap.

Butch:

Very, very much irony.

Hmm. Dutch does have projection issues, that he does. And insecurities. It was also interesting that Bill (It was Bill, I apologize), retorted not with “They were savages cuz look at ’em, all wearing different clothes and eating weird meats” but with “You weren’t in the army. You weren’t fighting ’em. You didn’t see what they did….” It was their actions that made them savage to Bill, not any kind of lack of class or religion or whatever. Maybe Dutch projects cuz of that, too. After all, you can take an outlaw and dress him up and give him money and give him books and teach him about opera and pasta, but if your ACTIONS define you, what you DID makes you savage, then there is no hope for Dutch, here or in Tahiti.

As for the convolutions, I understood that! Which probably means I also need a nap.

Hey, the sign of a good playing session is being all convoluted the next day.

Though let’s shift gears to something less obvious but no less interesting: The bigassed gator. That certainly felt metaphorical. Wading through an unfamiliar place, threatened by things you can’t see, unable to run or defend yourself, etc. The mood was great, to be sure. Freaky as shit. I also liked that you can’t really kill the menace, you can only drive it away for a time. Bigassed Gator is still out there, and he’s still hungry.

But what did you read the metaphor to be?

Female:

Dude, sometimes a bigassed gator is just a bigassed gator.

Hahahahaha! But also, in this case, I think maybe it’s a sort of representation of the larger forces they can’t control or escape. They’re struggling along (not really able to see where they’re going or where something might be waiting for them), and ‘the system’ (oppressive laws, Pinkertons, etc.) could strike at any moment, and even when they score a victory, it’s only temporary. They might escape, they might wound the Pinkertons or whoever by killing a few people, but then they have to run away, and the main body of the thing that’s hunting them is still out there. Still looking.

In this case, they escaped the gator for good by getting the hell out of the swamp, and that’s what Dutch WANTS to do with the forces that are hunting the gang, but getting the hell out of the country is, as we have seen, proving much more difficult than he hoped.

Butch:

It is still looking.

There was a lot packed into that session.

You know, maybe that’s another reason fast travel is so hard to come by in this game (and there are minigames and animals and shit): The game really does have to give you time to digest things. When this game really gets going, it gets deeply themey and fast. If this was a thirty hour game and all thirty hours were as brainy as the last 45 minutes, that would be exhausting. Right? We wouldn’t want that. So maybe we do want down time in games, doled out in a way that we can take as much as we want when we want.

Female:

It’s true, you don’t want that level of density all the time. That would become less like a game and more like a textbook. Probably one of those obscure philosophy textbooks that talks about feeding your enemies to alligators.

Whether we think it always works well or not, I really do think Mr. O’ is correct in that the pacing, and the amount of time it takes to get places or do things, is a very deliberate choice. Obviously the developers have played other games, and they know how people who play games tend to think and act. They know we WANT to rush all over the place whenever we want. Very clearly not allowing us to do that is setting an intentional mood, for sure.

And making us take a lot of time in between thinky bits to wander around is probably part of that. “Really THINK about that thinky bit!”

Butch:

Oh he’s most certainly right.

He would have liked this game……..

I kid, I kid. Sorta.

Slight detour! In order to get to my happy place, I spend the last half hour making dinner reservations in Nashville, where I will be in twelve and a half days but who’s counting? I’ve decided you’d like it, based on the early returns. There certainly are lots, I mean LOTS of places to drink booze, but, adding to its charm, they really do a spot on job of coming up with names for neighborhoods. Like, video game level creativity. There are neighborhoods there called “Tomorrow’s Hope,” “Fang,” “The Gulch” and the one we both agree wins the award for the best real neighborhood name on earth, “Pie Town.”

Seriously.

Female:

You MUST go and have some pie in Pie Town.

You must. Do it for me. Well, and for you.

Butch:

Dude, I dunno about pie, but, as it is very close to our hotel, I can almost guarantee I’m gonna have some booze in Pie Town.

But get your head around it: There are people who can say they live in Pie Town.

Female:

“Oh yeah, I have a place over in Pie Town.”

Rolls off the tongue, all right.

Butch:

What, Tomorrow’s Hope sounds like it should have ROBOT DINOSAURS.

And booze.

Female:

Lots of booze. Served by robot dinosaurs. Or maybe you have to fight robot dinosaurs to get it? Hm…

Butch:

One thing you gotta give the south/west/westerns: they did have a flair for naming places.

But this is reality outdoing art. I’d rather play in the Gulch, Tomorrow’s Hope and Pie Town than Strawberry. Strawberry? The fuck is that?

Female:

Hey, don’t knock strawberries! They make excellent pie.

Butch:

I don’t have anything against Strawberries. It’s just that whoever brainstormed place names for this game obviously did so while waiting to pick something up at Edible Arrangements.

When I come across Cantaloupe Ranch and Honeydew Hills I’ll know.

Female:

If we’re going to start talking about names, I’m honestly still much more troubled by their state names. (Sorry. Territories. These were not states yet in 1899 even in our world.)

‘New Hanover’? ‘Lemoyne’? And it’s not that I’m saying these names are inherently any stranger than the names we actually have for states (‘New Hampshire’? ‘Louisiana’?), but they just ring false.

Because they are false. And the fact that every time I look at a map I’m reminded that I’m roaming around in a weird alternate-history version of the country where all the important political and social points were presumably the same but none of the major figures responsible for delineating and naming western territories were (and also the president was different after the civil war? but not in a way that made any important difference to history?)–it just jars.

And then I start to disbelieve the entire narrative, even though it is otherwise quite realistically detailed and compelling.

And if I wanted to throw them major credit for subtle intentional mood-setting (like we did for the pacing), I could say well, maybe they’re TRYING to make us feel slightly disoriented, as if we’re lost in a familiar-yet-unfamiliar world, because that’s how Arthur would feel in this period of rapid social and technological change?

Or…even more subtly…maybe they want to make the point that we SHOULD feel a little off balance because this is the past, and the past is a foreign country. Right? They do things differently there! And even when you think you understand them, they could in fact be operating under a quite different set of assumptions about, for example, what to call territories! Which is only the smallest, subtlest of clues to alert us to the fact that maybe we have no real idea what these people are thinking or feeling and we shouldn’t presume we understand them!

Except that the game spends an awful lot of time trying to get us to know what Arthur is thinking and feeling, so we can understand him. So that’s probably more complicated than anything they would actually have been trying to do.

Anyway, I don’t really like it, and it’s not a big deal but every time I look at the map I think, in passing, how I don’t really like it. Meh. They can make their own choices about how to do their own game. Obviously.

Butch:

Dude, that was a mighty rant as a follow up to an edible arrangements joke. It’s a sunny spring Wednesday! We’re supposed to be making references to nudity and jokes about melons.

Female:

Yeah…but I was in a nit-picky frame of mind, so I was either going to pedantically point out that Emerald and Valentine and Saint Denis etc. etc. have nothing to do with food, which is true but beside the joke, or I was going to go in another direction.

Ooh, and now I’ve done both! Win!

Butch:

You go to Edible Arrangements to get valentines (and you want to anger your wife). So you get her emeralds to make right.

All connected.

Female:

Ennnnh…it’s a reach, but I’ll allow it. Because it’s quittin’ time, man! Woohoo!

Oh–and the quick update on the burning question of yesterday that I totally forgot about until now: the game did NOT reload at ‘last checkpoint,’ so don’t ever trust it to do that. It did reload at the point before the last fight, and not before the couple of fights before that (even though there was not a noticeable “pause and save here if you want to stop for the night!” point in there), so I only had to replay about 10 minutes.

Remember just yesterday when I said that the next playing session I did I would spend just getting back to camp?

Yup.

There were cliffs that made things all windy. There was me getting distracted by the map I found in the chimney and finding where it led to (a three hundred dollar gold bar!), a weird gang that TOUCHED MY HORSE, a weird settlement called Butcher’s Creek that I wandered around that will probably be relevant later, etc.

I even got slowed down by a goat.

Remember way back when I found Largas the first time there was this goat that kept kicking my ass? I found his cousin last night. I almost died. Fucking thing knocked me on my ass three times, and off a damn rock face. Like during “greets.” “Howdy pard-” WHAM! Even Arthur went “Shit…what?”

Randomly went down a mine shaft and met happy miners, that sort of thing.

Came away from 45 minutes with a cigarette card, a gold bar, and some knowledge of places that will likely become relevant at a later time.

It’s funny…after my deep concerns regarding fast travel, I find I don’t miss it all that much lately. Having enough money to pop on the train sure helps. But then things like last night happen.

I mean, I’m all for exploration. It can be kinda fun, kinda interesting. But when a quest plops you on the other side of the map from the only other thing there is to do AND puts you and the thing to do far away from trains, there’s gotta be an option then to ride back to camp. Just then. Not all the time. It seems reasonable.

Ah well. I’m in camp now. Dutch is all “Arthur! Come up here!” and I’m all “Dude…can I just eat first? I’ve had a long trip…..”

Feminina:

I found that map, I think! I ignored it. Good on you for actually figuring out where it went and finding the gold bar. I SHOULD HAVE THAT GOLD!!!!

Of course, I’m now sitting on $3800+ in cash and have nothing I want to buy, so I guess I don’t miss it that much.

Ah, Butcher’s Creek. Yeah, you’ll be back there. I think I met that goat there, too! Just ran up out of nowhere and knocked me over. I said, “I’ve heard about you…I’ll just get back on my horse and move along.” And I did. Because Butch said that goat was trouble, and as we know, I ALWAYS heed his wise advice.

Well, once I did. That time when it was about goats.

Anyway.

I played some, and…game…you gotta let people save. I mean, I’m going to test the theory that if you die and just quit, you’ll reload at ‘last checkpoint’ when you come back, but if that theory is wrong…

See, it was about 9:15 and Dutch wanted to talk, and I should have known better than to talk to anyone only 15 minutes before the time I like to shut the game down and go to bed, but I thought I’d chance it. And of course I got sucked directly into a mission from the conversation, but what do you know, the thing we were doing wrapped up right about at 9:30! Except then that sucked me directly into another thing, and another thing, and I swear, finally at 9:50 I got shot and I had to turn it off because I had to go to bed.

And game, I respect the desire to maintain forward momentum, I do. You don’t want to let people save whenever the hell they want, because then they’ll say “hey, I’ll just wander off and do a bunch of other stuff and come back to this time-sensitive mission in a couple of weeks when all the narrative momentum has been lost and it no longer makes any damn sense that this quest would still be active!”

You don’t want people doing this, and I respect that. But when you don’t let people save, they feel like they have to keep playing long past their bedtimes or risk losing progress, and they get grumpy and lose focus on your narrative because they’re thinking “GOD DAMN IT JUST LET THIS DAMN THING BE OVER” and eventually they either finish in an exhausted rage where they don’t appreciate your work anyway, or they give up and go to bed and worry, and if they come back the next day and find that they have to do all that stuff again, there will be a lot of white-hot rage.

I mean, I kind of assume (that is, I really hope) that the autosave of the ‘last checkpoint’ will be there when I reload. If so, that’s fine. I have no quarrel with you. But I don’t quite trust you when it comes to saves, because I’ve burned myself on your save practices so many times (which is largely on me!), so I worry.

I worry, game. That’s a lot of stuff to have to redo from the beginning if you didn’t save that.

Butch:

Dude, this is quite the risk.

See, I’ve found the meditative chill of minigames help. I have been in the position of “I have to start cooking in ten minutes,” I know that talking to the yellow thing will vortex me into some shit, but I don’t want to stop playing because I don’t want to start cooking, I find dominos or poker to be a nice diversion. It’s probably why they have dominos in camp in the first place. Dutch up there yelling at everyone “Hey! I have a long quest!” so everyone just looks at each other sideways all “Hey, let’s just start playing dominos so we can tell him we’re busy…..”

You’re getting late into the game. Did you really think you’d get through it without one more round of white hot rage for old time’s sake?

And yeah, me, too with having a lot of money. And the whole time I was looking for the thing I was thinking “This is just gonna be money I don’t need….” and, sure enough, it was money I didn’t need.

Every time Arthur or Dutch says “We just need money…” I want Mary or someone to be all “Uh…what about that small fortune you have in your satchel?”

Watch: We’ll finally get to Blackwater and it’ll be 250 bucks and a map and Dutch’ll be all “We’re saved!”

Also Yeah! That fucker! What did I do to that goat? I wanted to shoot it but figured that might vex the residents.

Feminina:

Yeah, or Dutch will say “we just need a little more money!” and I think “Arthur COULD call his bluff by offering to hand over that fat wad of cash there…”

Ha!–you’re so right. The Blackwater stash will be one gold bar and some salted offal. “At last! The treasure is ours again!”

The risk–I know, I know. It’s really my fault, yet again, because I DO know better than to talk to anyone so close to quitting time. But I really don’t like minigames, plus, no one is playing them anymore in my camp, so I would have had to ride to town to find someone to play poker with, and by the time I get there it’s time to go to bed anyway and all I’ve gained is having to ride back to camp next time I load.

But yeah…logically, what I should have done is just quit 15 minutes early. Siiiigh.

The game is putting me in the position of having to think carefully and sensibly about how to ration my time with it. This is unfair.

Butch:

Better yet, it’ll be crates and crates of sugar cubes and Roach will be all “And you thought YOU were the one calling the shots! MWHAHAHAHAHA!”

You should have quit early. But I feel ya. We’re so conditioned by life and these damn loving families of ours to cling to every possible moment of game time. Just leaving 15 minutes there would be like leaving half a cup of ice cream behind. You just don’t DO that. It’s against our nature. But sometimes you just gotta fight your nature.

It is unfair. It very much is. But, again, it is not the game’s fault. If people would leave us alone so we could play when we wanted, the rationing wouldn’t be an issue. Not the game’s fault we have these lives of ours. It’s cuz I have a life of chaos and you never take my advice.

Feminina:

You always take the game’s side! I should have known! Why do you hate me!?

[Stalks off in a rage, slamming doors all along the way]

There’s one real question, though: why are goats so ornery?

Also of note: I don’t know why people complained about it being too easy for your horse to die. I have ridden my horse directly into fences and wagons and signposts I don’t know how many times (distracted driving! a deadly hazard!), and she always falls over and then scrambles up good as new. The only time I’ve actually killed her was by riding directly into the side of a moving train. Turns out that’s bad.

I reloaded the game, because duh, that’s my horse. My truest friend in this vast and confusing world, always there for me, always with minty fresh breath from all the herbs I feed her. I love my horse, man.

Interestingly, this is not just my interpretation: Arthur always speaks gently and fondly to his horses, in a way he doesn’t to people. His horse IS actually the main recipient of his affection. Certainly the living being with whom he spends the majority of his time.

And the fact that he’s seen to be uniformly kind to his horses is, perhaps, one of the strongest arguments to be made for the idea that somewhere at heart, he’s the good man people keep telling him he is.

Butch:

I am merely the voice of reason!

It’s all so clear to me now….I see what you did:

“He is only telling me not to buy a house because he hates me! He wants to doom me to a life of having no home equity! That bastard! I’ll show him!…….shit.”

But the horse, I know! The only times I’ve killed Roach (and, thus, immediately reloaded) were the couple times I inadvertently ridden off a cliff. Like, a real cliff, not some little ledge. But yeah, trees and shit? Roach is all “whatevs.”

He really does speak nicely to his horse, doesn’t he? The one thing he says that always gets me (and now that I think about it, there’s a reason it stands out) is when, after there’s a fight or something and I feed or calm Roach, Arthur says “I’m sorry, boy,” like he really, really means it. He does feel bad that he got his horse involved with dangerous shit that wasn’t the horse’s problem.

This makes me wish that I had heard the apology speech that Arthur tried to give way back when that my loving family talked over. Ah, well.

Feminina:

Ah, it would be nice to actually hear what people were saying in games…that’s the impossible dream we cling to.

But yeah, he really cares about his horse. As he should! His horse is loyal, always there for him, never complains, trots across the entire map every couple of days without a murmur. That should be appreciated! And that’s the kind of unswerving devoted service that would be easy to come to take for granted, making one behave with indifference or outright cruelty to a horse, but no. Arthur is good to his horse. I will give him credit for that.

He also pats dogs, when he’s me, but that’s optional–you also have the option to scold dogs. You don’t have the option to scold your horse. You don’t choose whether to ‘greet’ or ‘antagonize’ your horse. Arthur just says what he says to the horse, and that’s how it is. In that sense, it’s a reflection of his most unchanging character.

Hm.

Speaking of drunk musclemen…have you met the sideshow folk?

Butch:

True. You can be annoying to dogs.

It also goes beyond “honor.” You bond with your horse. Horse bonding is a thing. I reached it with Roach long ago (you don’t get many trophies in this, but “reach max bonding with a horse” is one I got).

Meanwhile, yours is all malnourished if dentally healthy.

Sideshow folk…Why no…..no I have not…..

Feminina:

I’m sure you will. Meet them, I mean.

And yes, true, bonding with your horse is a thing, where bonding with humans? Enh.

You’re never sure where you stand with humans, but a horse? That you can depend on.

I also long ago got the maximum bonding with my dear, sweet horse that I love so well. This one is NOT malnourished! When I took her to the stables briefly just to see if anything was new to buy there, he didn’t say anything about her looking hungry. My other horse is probably happier where he is, though.

Butch:

I’m sure I will.

But not today! Just played, because this weekend Junior has shows, so rehearsals, so the evenings are a mess. Did a thing with a bigass gator (interesting they follow Dutch wanting to charge into the unknown of Tahiti and mangoes with the dread of this unknown), and then did Bronte. Saw Arthur cough. Still not sure if I’m right or that was because he was in the water.

Still….Bronte. Gonna have to digest that.

WAY too much there for us to talk about at the end of the day. “I’m what this country is, you’re what they’re running away from….” “For all your money you got taken down by a bunch of bumpkins…..” And also bookending it with Dutch talking to Arthur about how no one is loyal anymore (save Micah) despite ample evidence to the contrary (Arthur even points out he’s still there), GETTING ample evidence to the contrary (no one doing anything when Bronte offered them money) and yet losing some loyalty because of his anger at not being able to…what…protect them? Keep them blindly loyal? Both?

I think something we’re starting to see is that Dutch is more about looking correct than he is about results. He wants to succeed, but it’s mostly so he looks good in the eyes of the gang. He’s scared at looking weak. He’s angry if he thinks people are doubting his manhood, the perfection of his dream. Which….well, it’s late.

Spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2 and the story about Boy Calloway and the author

Butch:

Game….I got thoughts.

Not white hot rage thoughts. Confusion. Mild annoyance. Thoughts.

So killed Calloway. I rather liked the bit on the river boat. “You have to prove something…to you!” Then my heart sank cuz there’s another city? Amesbury or whatever? WHAT? Anyway, did all that. And there were themes! Discussable themes! Being free from truth to be able to write “real westerns?” The fact that there will always be gunslingers as “there will always be someone who’ll shoot you in the back and rewrite history?” Thing was brimming with themes! Good themes! It was really, really good!

It’s not what it had that is filling me with confusion. It’s what it didn’t have:

Black Belle.

Not a mention. Not a nod. Not an allusion. Nothing.

And that confuses me.

This was a great quest. This quest had more themes in it, more good narrative, than whole games we’ve played. Within this very well written quest appeared one of the best characters in the game. And when it’s all wrapped up she’s forgotten? Really? That seems like awfully lazy writing in a quest characterized by fantastic writing.

Are they making a point that even awesome women get ignored by men who write the “real stories?” Maybe? I don’t know! Ergo, confusion.

I’m holding out hope that this means she’ll show up later and be awesome.

I’ll tell you what I want to see. It’ll never happen, but dreaming is something to cling to. I want Belle to meet Sadie, and ask her to take over being Black Belle, like the dread pirate Robert in The Princess Bride. Teach her to wear the widow’s weeds (see?) and become the terrifying outlaw Black Belle for a new generation. Then I want to play that, as a whole game, as Sadie.

Make it happen, Rock Star. I’ll press X to preorder. Even Femmy would play that.

But as that hasn’t happened, confusion.

We’ll talk on the themes that are already there, too. But first, confusion must clear.

The mild annoyance, too. That stems from the fact this game, once again, has urged me to do a quest at this moment that, when it ended, plopped me pretty much as far away from the next thing as I can possibly be. Where the fuck am I? I’m way up north by a weird town with nothing in it. Dutch is…..WAAAAAAAAAAAAY down there.

Game? That’s mildly annoying.

At least I found an abandoned house with a map in the chimney. That’s something. Right?

Feminina:

OMG I would preorder that so hard! The only concern is that we and the game have spent all this time talking about how this is the end of the era of outlaws in the west and so forth, so I’m not sure exactly what they’d DO. Watch the very, very end of that era and write their memoirs? Or spend all their time trying to think of new ways to make money…new, modern scams? Hm.

I would still play it, though.

And you’re right, the conspicuous absence of any mention of Black Belle is…interesting. As you say, it could be a very telling example (whether planned that way or not) of how women’s stories tend to be forgotten. Not even maliciously or intentionally, they just…don’t occur to the person writing the history as interesting. EVEN THOUGH that person had her on his list of famous gunslingers at the beginning–it was his idea to look for her! And EVEN THOUGH she was the only one on that list who was still alive when Arthur left them! You’d think that would be interesting! But no. She somehow just slipped everyone’s minds.

Maybe she used a Jedi mind trick. I would also probably play a game where it turned out Black Belle was a Jedi, although the collision of those two genres would potentially be messy.

Anyway. That aside, I agree that this was a very interesting quest. Again, those questions of truth and (mostly) lies, and history (mostly made up) and who tells the stories (mostly people who weren’t there). And old grudges, and how those can poison someone’s whole life. I felt pretty bad about the Marshall. He seemed semi-decent, and to have actually put the old grudges behind him and moved on with his life, in a laudable fashion. Boy Calloway being unable to similarly let it go, and shooting him in the back…damn. The grudge turned him into the lowest of the low: no longer a brave, daring gunslinger, just a coward who’d shoot a man in the back.

Again, holding onto the past is seen to be unhealthy and a bad choice.

Butch:

I’d play that in a second. But really, one of the rather odd things about this game that I’m sure millions of other people understand is that, yes, it talks so much about being the end of an era yet is it a PREQUEL. So I guess the whole era lasted long enough for at least one more long assed game. We could do the Black Belle stuff concurrent with that, time wise! Works fine!

Make it happen, Rockstar!

Yes! It wasn’t as if Arthur stumbled upon her and was all “Hey, she’s a gunslinger, too!”

You think it really WAS a bunch of male writers at rockstar who really did forget to put her in? Life imitating art? I dunno, man. These guys seem pretty careful.

Holding onto the past is a bad choice, or, and this is something that could be argued the writer, or we all, are doing: Trying to fix it. Yes, the grudge turned him into a coward who shot a man in the back, but what killed him was trying to correct that, trying to become a daring gunslinger again. He knew he had become a coward. He was crying about it. His reaction was to turn to Arthur and say “Fight me!” Arthur all “Why? No.” The only reason was that Calloway wanted to fix his mistake and, oddly, he did. By dying right there, right then, his story is going to be that he shot the Marshall in a fair duel, and was shot in the back himself by the Marshall. Right?

Now I’m driving myself in circles. Did he get what he wanted? Did he “fix” the past? Or did his trying to fix the past turn out to be a stupid decision that got him killed? Or both? Both, maybe.

And yet, so many of the stories we tell, about ourselves and others, are really about fixing things, editing the parts of the story of life that don’t quite fit, that don’t quite sit right. It’s more than just making them more exciting, making people more eager to hear them. It’s about making them stories that we want to hear, period. After all, the guy didn’t say “Now I get to write really cool stories.” He said “Now I get to write REAL Westerns,” emphasis mine. Now REALITY is up to him.

Maybe that’s why we didn’t see Belle. Belle, in her way, got to tell her own story on her own terms. She didn’t need any embellishment at all, cuz she was super cool. She even had her character down pat, right to the costume. And yes, she lived. She was able to keep writing her own story, her way, with no pesky details to edit and correct.

Feminina:

That’s a good point–it is a prequel! So yeah, Black Belle and Sadie can totally have an entire long-ass game that runs concurrently with Red Dead 1. I’m into it.

DO IT ROCKSTAR. DO IT NOW.

It’s a good point, as well, that much of telling stories is ‘fixing’ them–if not through actively trying to make a specific person look ‘good’ (which I agree is what Boy Calloway was after–trying to stay a strong protagonist in his own story), then simply through trying to make them MAKE SENSE. A ‘good story’ is a story that makes sense to us, and telling history is about not just describing things that happened, but trying to explain why: trying to make sense of them. Trying to apply a logical narrative to a bunch of semi-random events that took place.

And I guess Boy Calloway got what he wanted, although he died before he knew about it. He died knowing he was a coward–after the fact the story was changed, and if he were still alive he’d have been happier with the new story, but does that do him a damn bit of good? No.

Maybe that, too, is part of the point of Belle: she’s left out of the ‘official’ story, which means she gets to go do her own thing, and she’s still alive to appreciate whatever she makes of the rest of her tale. Maybe part of the reason the author isn’t interested in her is that she IS still alive, as far as we know, and therefore could still contradict his written interpretation (either literally by showing up to say he was wrong, or simply by living in some way that inconveniently doesn’t fit with what he wrote). It’s great for him that everyone else he was writing about is dead–their stories are now done, and he’s free to tell them however he wants. No wonder he seemed so cheerful about it!

Butch:

That’s it! We gotta get a petition.

Man, we have such good ideas for games. If only there was a job for coming up with great ideas and then telling other people who know how to make games to make them while we go off and sell candles.

About the gunslinger, I dunno. He knows that Arthur shot him, right? At least for a very small moment?

And that’s exactly why the author was cheerful! Arthur is all “Sorry I killed him…” and the author is all “Sorry? What for? This is great! I’m so happy!”

That said….there should have been some mention of Belle. Would it have been so hard to add a line like “Well, I suppose I’ll have to leave her out because her story is yet to be told” or something? Leaving it completely out so that bloggers can start a lot of sentences with “maybe” isn’t the best way to make this particular point. Or any point, for that matter.

Feminina:

It’s true, being extremely vague is very rarely the best way to make a point about something. I won’t say never!–but rarely.

And in this case, certainly, not saying anything about Belle was not a very good way to make a point about her, unless the point was–as you initially suggested–that women and their stories are often overlooked.

In which case, nice job! I just wonder if they did it on purpose.

Butch:

It would be a supreme irony if they did this by accident.

But supreme irony has happened before.

I still hope she turns up later.

Feminina:

Yeah. I would absolutely play a game with her and Sadie. Or just her, like we talked about before when she first showed up–a prequel to this prequel.

I haven’t seen or heard of her so far (of course, I never read the newspapers I buy, so I could have missed the front page story of her dramatic death), but you never know. I’m only on chapter 6.

Oh, and I wandered by Valentine last night and ran into those two brothers again and finished (I think) their story. We can talk later if you get around to going back there. Or I’ll just tell you how it ended if you don’t.

Whichever.

Butch:

Only. Only on chapter six, huh? Only.

And I won’t get there tonight because I’m ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FUCKING MAP. It’s gonna take me a good hour to get back to Dutch. Or it will feel that way.

Seriously, game. Not cool.

As for the brothers, well, if you wandered back there, I’m sure there was a reason. A reason I will, at some point, get. I’ll check it then.

Well, did some. I intimidated an art professor in order to get him to say that the mayor’s paintings were real. Then I noticed that the gunslinger dude’s quest was back on, and I liked that quest, so I took the train all the way to Valentine only to be told that he was back in St. Denis (Jesus, game, really?), then bumped into the two weirdos again and kicked them in the junk.

That was my night.

I suppose the undercurrent is the macho American ideal versus the effete, coastal, liberal elite. The two weirdos are “college boys,” and the professor from New Haven is, well, a professor from New Haven. What’s interesting is that, at first glance, these quests make the coastal elite folks look rather negative. The professor is a pretentious wimp, the weirdos are, well, weirdos who can’t prove their own manhood. However, if you look closer, the rich liberals are still the ones in charge. Arthur intimidates the professor so that a rich assed FOREIGN Mayor can get a museum that Arthur likely won’t be able to get into or understand. The weirdos? They do, even after being doofuses, walk away with the pretty woman leaving Arthur in the alley. It’s like “Look macho all you want, macho American. In the end you’re in the alley with fifteen bucks.”

Hmm.

And what did you make of the comparison between the art quests? Here, we have a quest about what art is. Is it “fake?” Is it “real?” Arthur makes the rather good point when the professor agrees to say they’re real that “now everyone can enjoy them.” The Mayor himself says they’re very nice paintings. All questions about the very nature of art that have been going on forever.

Compare that to the French “whole ass” who’s gallery showing ended so badly. There, too: Is it art? Is it beautiful? Scandalous? Offensive?

I’m all for pondering these things. I kinda like talking about art in all its forms, from video games to scented candles. But I’m not sure what these quests are doing in this game at this point.

Whatchu think?

Feminina:

Oh man…I never intimidated an art professor! I must have missed talking to the mayor at that party. Sad face.

Although I did the shocking art opening with the French guy, and the resulting brawl was kind of awesome. This is taking art SERIOUSLY. I can see that the two stories would make an interesting contrast. I’m also reminded of our questions about Margaret’s paying Arthur with a suspiciously enormous gem that everyone seemed to find believable enough that we got $50 for it.

Maybe if people believe it, it’s real enough.

And true, very true, that the elitist, wimpy college boys are still the ones on top of the social heap. These are the people in control, and whatever they want–even if it’s to play at participating in the violence and suffering that is the ordinary lot of the common man (to the imperfect extent that Arthur represents the common man)–they can just pay for it, stick around as long as it’s amusing for them, and then head home, basically unscathed. Unless we do wind up accidentally killing one of them. We’ll see! If we ever go back to Valentine.

But dude, that’s exactly what happened to me: I was in Saint Denis, saw the marker for the gunslingers quest back in Valentine, raced back there…and was told that they’d gone to Saint Denis. Siiiiigh.

Butch:

Well, those people were mad that their wives and mothers posed, which, in and of itself, is interesting. Obviously the wives and mothers thought it was art, right? Their neighbors and husbands may well have disagreed, but the women involved had no issue with it. Another side of suffrage, that.

So the art professor….

You get a letter from the mayor that basically says “Dude, I know you robbed me, so you owe me a favor.” Turns out the mayor, who is the dapper French guy, wants to open a fancy art museum in St. Denis, the pride of the state. So he goes out and buys all these legitimately great paintings that he thinks are from the masters, and has a professor in to verify them only to find they’re fakes. So we have the age old “If it’s a very nice painting but not painted by someone famous, does that make it less art than something else” debate. The mayor asks Arthur to find the professor (who is from New Haven, so take that as you will) and persuade him to “change his mind” about the authenticity of the paintings. Which Arthur does. Arthur, then, without irony and some genuine confusion says “You’ve done a good thing! Now people can enjoy those paintings!” Which…he has a point, right? They aren’t bullshit, ugly paintings. The mayor didn’t KNOW they were fakes when he bought them, and genuinely wanted a nice museum.

Questions.

You never know about those brothers. I wasn’t expecting to end up in Valentine this time. But hey, good chance to eat and stuff.

Speaking on that, now that I have money, I’ve taken to buying the nicest food I can get whenever I’m at a saloon. Like, lots of it. I had three bowls of oatmeal and four lamb fries in Valentine! I’m a fucking glutton! And have I gained any weight? No. Still underweight. I don’t get how the weight mechanic works. But whatever. I still get through the game.

But going to Valentine and having to turn right back around–that was just plain mean, game. Just plain mean.

At least I took the train, so no time was wasted. Just ten bucks I didn’t really need. If that had been my game time, then white hot rage.

Feminina:

I had the lamb fry too! FIVE DOLLARS for a meal seems a bit steep considering I just sold a perfectly good horse for $1.80 (to be fair, it was stolen, and the guy did say “if you don’t have papers, I can’t give you full price”), but hey, I can afford to treat myself. It’s not as if Dutch is going to invest that money wisely for the good of the gang if I turn it over.

Still underweight. You must have to just spend entire game sessions eating if you want to gain. Which I will obviously never do, even though there’s probably a trophy involved. “Nice work! You actually managed to put on two pounds!”

As for the art question…hm. True, perfectly nice paintings that people can enjoy but that don’t happen to have been painted by someone famous…those paintings are just as enjoyable no matter who painted them.

But…there’s something there about authenticity. Like, why do we have to pretend they were painted by someone famous to appreciate them? Why can’t we just say “hey, nice painting” and put it on the wall and not care who painted it? This whole idea that the paintings are “fake”: they aren’t obviously, false paintings. They are real paintings made of real paint and canvas. But they’re fake FAMOUS-PAINTER paintings. And that, potentially, makes them worthless.

It’s interesting that you’re now returning to the gunslingers quest, which is also about authenticity: did this guy really do all the things he claimed? Perhaps one could also ask, why do we have to believe that this one guy actually did this stuff, to enjoy the story? Why can’t we just say “hey, that’s a lively and exciting story”? The things written about in the story might even actually have happened, it’s just that other people (like, say, Arthur) did them rather than Boy Calloway. It’s not necessarily that they’re false stories (though some of them probably are), but they’re false FAMOUS-GUNSLINGER stories, which, potentially, makes them worthless.

It goes back to Margaret, and the idea of showing people what they want to see. They want to see fearless female animal trainers, and paintings by famous artists, and they want to read about the deeds of famous gunslingers. Or they want valuable giant gems from old family estates. The thing, whatever it is, is not valuable because of what it is, it’s only valuable because of its connections. Celebrity culture is eternal.

We want to form connections with influential, significant other people, however tenuous those connections may be (“I saw so-and-so’s painting! I read about what’s-his-name’s exciting life! I have a relic of Saint Thingummy!”), and we don’t care about forming connections with boring, anonymous people (who, statistically, are extremely likely to be ourselves and our fellow peasants).

Is it CORRECT to tell people these paintings are by famous artists? No…but arguably being incorrect will make them a lot happier.

The thing is, that does start to walk a dangerous line towards “oh, what is truth, anyway? Just tell people what they want to hear! Good, exciting stories full of dastardly deeds and improbable heroes!”

And eventually, here we are.

Butch:

Yeah the gunslingers popped as soon as I finished with the art guy. I did find that telling.

Still, as interesting as this is, what’s it doing here? This isn’t really what this game is about. Sure, it’s good for a couple days of good bloggage, but just because something is blog worthy doesn’t make it belong in every game.

Feminina:

Well, it is part of that whole ongoing theme: what’s the Real America? What’s freedom, what’s truth, what’s authenticity? Who gets to decide–who controls the narrative?

We’ve come back to it repeatedly since pretty early on with this question of how ‘realistic’ this history of the wild west is. How true, how believable, how much of what we know is false (and how much of what we once knew and then learned to be false, is false in other ways we still don’t know about)?

These questions have arguably been in this game since the load screen, with its melodramatic primary color poster image showing us one very bright, very limited, very unreal view that is then complicated and unfolded over and over throughout the story.

Butch:

Fair. Very fair.

But while we’re on load screens and art and what narratives are, it’s true that the load screen is that bright, macho, cowboy, stars and stripes image, that melds into the other load screens, the old timey photographs which, being photographs, would be seen as more real, less of the stylized box art. We always start the game with those, those images of history, real people, places and animals. Those are a very interesting contrast to the box art, and they are, really, the lead in, this “real” portrayal of the west. And those aren’t all macho, rah rah, USA USA. They’re more subtle, the images of pristine nature and hard working, hard people. At least the quotes around “real” are less than they are on the box art.

Right?

Feminina:

Yes, very true! All the old photos of landscapes, people sitting on their porches with their sewing, deer, little towns, whatever…not a macho manly cowboy pointing a gun at the viewer among them! Which is certainly a very intentional choice.

“You may have come here for the wild west movie…but here’s what you’re really going to be looking at.” (‘Looking at’ both in the sense of literally viewing, but also in the more general, “you’re looking at years of hard work living basically alone in the wilderness” that might have faced people actually moving west.)

And, also, it’s a series of depictions of the reality and hardship of life, but it’s also very peaceful, isn’t it? The music is quiet and gentle, the scenes are often very pretty with mountains and flowers, etc., and they fade gently from one to the next as if we’re just sitting calmly leafing through images from our own past, perhaps.

No doubt the reality depicted would be difficult, but we don’t see a lot of people working hard (partly, no doubt, because it was hard to take photos of things in motion with the cameras of the day, so action shots would be unrealistic) or seeming to be suffering. There aren’t battlefield shots or hangings or anything. They’ve chosen a fairly nice bunch of pictures to introduce the game.

Which, again, is certainly a choice, and an interesting one.

“Are you here for nonstop gunfights and brawling?! Do you want to make a name for yourself as the baddest outlaw in the west?! DO YOU!? Well, that’s not what you’re going to get. Here, chill for a minute and check out these nice landscape shots, and this deer in the meadow, and this woman knitting.”

Butch:

They are very relaxing. And they do have the trials and hard work. But they have something else: failure. Vacant shacks. Derelict wagons. A busted boat. A boat in a tree (what’s with that?). It’s a reminder that people went there and didn’t become American heroes. They became forgotten.

Which is very much a contrast to the gun toting hero taking up half the damn box.

Feminina:

Yeah, that too! Abandoned, collapsing buildings, broken wagons, etc. Things left behind by people who went there to build a life, and didn’t manage it.

Leftover pieces of all these dreams that have failed, much like the dreams of Dutch and the gang are bound to fail…or like those of the player who just wants to become the baddest outlaw in the west.

Butch:

It’s an unusual thing in a video game, really. Video games are usually about the very opposite of all that.

Feminina:

Or at least, when we see old wrecked things in games, it’s the ruins of ancient civilizations–aliens or elves or something. We’re used to that.

I was thinking about that the other day, actually, while looking at the wreckage of some abandoned building or other: it’s not that we haven’t seen this type of imagery before, it’s just that we’re not used to seeing it in this context–in more or less our own, nearly-modern world.

“These are the remnants of a forgotten people who were here before us…I don’t know, maybe 20 years ago?”

And, also, it’s interesting that pretty much all the wreckage we see is remnants of the relatively recent failure of (presumably) white settlers. The actual not-even-forgotten people who WERE here for a long time before us, they haven’t left these types of traces on the landscape, that we see. Which is maybe about how Indians live in harmony with the land and therefore leave fewer signs that an amateur eye would recognize, or maybe about how the game is not quite sure how to handle this issue and therefore just doesn’t address it here…I’m not sure which.

Butch:

Right, it might be there but it isn’t us. It isn’t a portent of our failures.

Closest we came was Horizon. Maybe, MAYBE Rise of the Tomb Raider with the failed Soviet settings. But it’s rare, and rarely hits this close to home.

Idly thinking about other games, as I sometimes do when I can’t play, and Sony’s little announcement that we didn’t really care about, and how we haven’t seen anything about The Last of Us 2 for a while. We need a new trailer.

Because if the trailer for TLOU2 is really, REALLY depressing, then you’ll be a lot happier with playing RDR2 for a while longer. Make the weariness cheerful in comparison!

Ha.

We do LIKE games, right? We do. Right?

Feminina:

I THINK we do. Right? I mean, we wouldn’t keep playing if we didn’t. Probably.

Unless we’re just addicts. Grimly chasing the ‘enjoyment’ of the early days when this habit was all a big party, unable to make it through the day without a hit of discussion about narrative or character development even when it’s not about ‘fun’ as much as it is about ‘sanity’…

Naw. We like them. I’m pretty sure.

Butch:

I’m pretty sure, too. Pretty sure. One must remind one’s self that one likes the things one likes from time to time.

Usually when I’m sitting down to play/drink and it’s loud. Or I’m paying someone to do shit in Junior’s closet.

But on Sony blowing off E3 and doing little announcements instead…man, wouldn’t it be awesome if next time they did some shit all “Hey, tune into this little livestream….no biggie….couple of trailers and PS5!!!!!!”

We can dream.

Feminina:

Ooooh…that would be cool…

We can dream!

And we must like games, or we wouldn’t be dreaming. Right? I think this must be right.

Butch:

Either that or games are the only dreams we have left.

****sob****

I better go play.

Feminina:

Go play now. You’re depressing both of us.

Surely playing will help, because we like to play! Or…

Just go play.

Butch:

It did kinda help!

Did a lot of stuff.

Let’s see….

First, met a guy who wants orchids and feathers I guarantee I will never bring him. Arthur’s continued incredulousness over what people want collected is amusing. The hats. “Can I get you a hat?” Nice touch. And I have a thought: the game is mocking people who do collectibles in games. We’ve talked on how this is a linear game that seems to have shoved stuff in, right? It’s at its best when we’re not running around, right? Every single time we’ve gotten a collect the stuff bit Arthur has basically says “Who would want that crap?” Cigarette cards (“They pay for these?”), fish (“They hang these on the wall?”), dinosaur bones (“They want things this old?”) now orchids and feathers (“Just….”). Arthur isn’t just shaking his head at people in his world that want them. He’s shaking his head at players choosing to waste their time. At least, it’s meta enough to think that.

Ain’t getting no feathers.

Second, decided to go get moonshine SPECIFICALLY for the last line you mentioned. Did NOT expect the dude was building the electric chair, which really is a ghastly commentary on modernity, isn’t it? I’d love to talk about this last line but I can’t cuz the QUEST IS ENDLESS. Literally. I stole the shine, trekked all the up to get the bad guy, trekked up again cuz Roach died and I reloaded, got the guy, thought the speech about electricity was wonderfully ghastly (this game is complicated in the way it treats modernity), gave the guy away and now I HAVE NO ICON AS TO WHERE TO GO TO FINISH THE QUEST AND I’M SO MAD CUZ THAT TOOK FOREVER AND STILL NO BLOGGAGE.

So I calmed down by

Third, went to the show and SAW ENTICING KNICKERS so happy.

Fourth, got into a fight at a gallery, which was a very cool dovetail with the electric chair guy. On one hand, here’s the ghastly future of executions. On the other, here’s the rather wonderful future of art. I feel kinda awful I helped the professor. On the other hand, I’m rooting for the artist. And yet, both are a) flawed people and b) representations of the future.

Hmm.

Fifth, went to see Mary. Did all of that, including MORE ENTICING KNICKERS. Dude….RUN AWAY WITH MARY! NOW!

This was the last thing I did, and I’m still pondering in the overarching central metaphor. We’ve pretty much known that he’s marching towards inevitable doom, both of the gang’s way of life and the probable end of his own, and all the metaphor that entails. Here, the story gave him an off ramp. He COULD have gone. Really. His excuses were just that, excuses. Notably, they were loyalty to the gang, in other words, a loyalty to a metaphorical way of life. He’s clinging to his ways DESPITE THERE BEING SOMETHING BETTER HE COULD HAVE.

Once upon a time, my father in law (I keep mentioning family in this game) was in the Navy. He was successful, so successful he got offered a full scholarship to Annapolis, which is, of course, very prestigious. He turned it down, and, instead, went back to the dying, working class logging town in which he and his grandparents and his great grandparents were raised. It was a shithole, and a dying one at that (it has lost two thirds of its population in the last twenty years. Even its McDonalds is boarded up). Why did he do that? Why did he go back to a dying way of life when he had an off ramp? Well, his reason (I almost typed excuse): “My people were there.” Seriously. I often wonder if it was that, fear of something different, or both.

What I do know is he regrets that decision, the decision not to take that off ramp to Annapolis.

But people make that decision, not to take the off ramp to something better because of their people, or fear, or both, every day. And a lot of them get rewarded by watching their way of life die.

I watched that scene and was mentally screaming at Arthur “GO, YOU MORON, GO!!!!” But I wonder if that, once again, is my perspective living how I do. Maybe there were a lot of people who watched that and thought “Yeah, sad that he won’t be with Mary, but it’s true, you gotta stay with your people.”

Something to think on, anyway.

Feminina:

Ain’t gettin’ no feathers. And I like your take on it. Arthur is telling us we’re silly to fall for these collectible items! They’re ridiculous! Let’s all scorn to participate.

The moonshine quest IS kind of endless. It’s one of those things where you have to wait for a while before the next step comes up. But discussion fodder! Electricity, the wonder of the modern world…obviously must be used to kill people!

But the guy really means well, because he thinks it’s going to result in painless and humane executions, compared to hanging. So is he really trying to do something good? This is the future, all right…is it an improvement on the past, maybe, a little? Or is it just a modern, equally horrible take on something horrible? Arthur certainly seems pretty skeptical that it’s an improvement.

And here’s another thing that really struck me: Arthur is kind of a monster here. He’s intentionally taunting and tormenting that guy, trying to freak him out and make him miserable and terrified, and apparently just thinks it’s entertaining to make him cry. Why? That guy didn’t do anything in particular to him that dozens of other guys haven’t done before (that is, try to kill him to avoid capture). He’s not any worse a criminal than any others, as far as we can tell. He doesn’t represent some particularly awful brand of outrage, like he’s a known baby-murderer or something. Normally Arthur just lugs his bounties back to jail and dumps them–why does this one guy deserve to be regaled with awful details about all the horrible things that are going to happen to him?

I think it’s maybe just supposed to show US that Arthur doesn’t trust this newfangled invention, but it shows us that through him essentially torturing this random dude. I felt pretty gross about that whole bit. I felt like saying, Arthur, SHUT UP. Maybe it’s meant to indicate that newfangled inventions–and therefore modern civilization in general–make people cruel and nasty? “This is a cruel new thing, and it makes those complicit in its use turn cruel as well?”

On the other hand, this behavior isn’t completely unfamiliar from Arthur, so maybe “it turned him cruel” is inaccurate. Maybe it just reminds us how cruel he’s always had the capacity to be. He was pretty mean to Kieran for quite a while, and taunted him with threats of death and torment a few times. Maybe it’s just that, at least the way we’ve been playing it, all white-hat and helping people and not antagonizing the people in camp, I’d kind of forgotten what a jerk I thought he was, back near the beginning. Hm.

Enticing knickers!!!!! This reminds us that we do like games. And then you got to see the enticing knickers again with Mary! Good times. Did you try to put your arm around her? I did. Then looked sheepish and stopped when she gave me a stern glance.

And yeah, man…he should have gone with her. He could have! You really felt it, in that moment, that he could have just gone. Of course he didn’t because loyalty, and he’ll probably wind up dead because loyalty, but I believed Mary really wanted him to go with her, and that he did think about it for a couple of seconds.

And then of course he said “after this is done,” and she said “sure,” and you know that will never happen. Sigh.

And I’m sure you’re right, that there are people who watch that scene and feel that he did the right thing, that he DID have to stay with his people, and who knows? Loyalty is a thing. “My place is with my people” is a valid decision. It’s just interesting that even though he clearly does love Mary, she’s NOT one of his people. “My place is with my wife” would also be a very convincing argument, and yet the idea of it doesn’t override his sense of his duty to the gang. She’s an outsider (he doesn’t even attempt to suggest that she come back with him to the gang), and his duty lies with his group.

Still, it was nice that they got to see a show together and have one good evening to remember each other by.

Butch:

The taunting was out of character, but I don’t think it was making a point about Arthur so much as it was trying to get out of the corner they painted themselves into, narrativewise. They had to make the point that the professor isn’t just the kind, benevolent force he thinks he is (maybe), that it’s far more complicated than that. The quest couldn’t be “Hey! You made the electric chair! Way to go!” But they didn’t have a character who could do it besides Arthur. Who else could do that? That’s what happens when you send the player way out to nowhere. That’s not a defense of it; it’s sloppy writing. But I think that was it.

As for Mary…..

I agree he didn’t see her as one of his people, but he also didn’t want her to be BECAUSE HE LOVED HER. He was all “I’m an outlaw, and the people near me will be considered outlaws.” He WANTED her to stay an outsider. That would suggest that the gang isn’t the people he LOVES. He wants to keep his loves at arm’s length. When it comes to the gang? Loyalty for sure. He’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with them. But Mary? He’s of the opinion that the last place anyone he loves should be is with the gang.

Arthur doesn’t love the gang, but he stays with them anyway.

Hmm.

Feminina:

Hm…yeah. I agree, it did feel like the game wanted us to know that it wasn’t all “rah-rah the electric chair is awesome!” So, yeah, maybe just awkward writing, that Arthur had to be the one to get this message across, and had to do it by being a jerk to a prisoner.

He was being a serious jerk, though. LEAVE THE MAN ALONE ARTHUR. I mean, he could have expressed these doubts to the inventor, that would have been easy enough to write. “Hey, are you sure this is a good idea? I’ve seen cows struck by lightning” etc. etc. Let the scientist argue for his idea! “Oh no, it’s going to be great because I carefully target the nerves” or whatever. We could still have gotten all the same points.

But no, we have to hand over this poor criminal, whimpering in terror, to a probable grisly and nightmarish death. I think it’s partly we’re meant to feel kind of bad about participating in the whole thing. And maybe “I feel bad about myself for being such a terrible person” is a fair approach to that.

And Mary, yeah, I can see that too. He doesn’t want the woman he loves to get mixed up with the gang. I don’t know that I’d agree he doesn’t love the gang, though. I mean, obviously not every individual person in it, but he loves Dutch and Hosea, and I think he loves the core idea of the gang and its principles of freedom and so forth. He loves it, I think, the way other people love their country. It’s his home, his identity, part of who he is. You can’t give that up just for romance! At least, some people can’t. He can’t.

Butch:

Yeah, it was clumsy writing. Though maybe someone SO fell in love with that conversation happening in a lightning storm they put up with the clumsy writing.

Whoa, I agree about the love of the ideals, that I do. But you think he loves Dutch? I think he feels he owes Dutch because of all Dutch did for him, but love? I’m not sure he even likes Dutch, or, at the very least, he hasn’t thought it through. He thinks Dutch just is, and him being with Dutch just is. Him thinking about if he likes Dutch is like thinking if you like the sun coming up in the east instead of the south west. The sun just is. We certainly haven’t seen any emotion from Arthur re the gang like we saw with Mary.

This day’s bloggage turned around! It’s like I played.

Feminina:

My conversation with that dude didn’t even happen during a lightning storm! No excuses. Lazy writing, or it’s supposed to remind us that Arthur is kind of a jerk. Which he does keep telling all the people who say “you’re a good man”! “No I’m not,” he always says. Maybe he’s right.

But dude, you think all this “you’re like a son to me” and their shared history and the fact that Dutch practically raised him, that’s all nothing? See, I think Arthur does love Dutch, the way people love the (sometimes terribly) flawed people who raise them. It’s not a logical thing, and yes, logically he can see (and is more and more coming to see) that Dutch is a deeply flawed human, but emotions famously do not answer to logic. Dutch and Hosea took him in when he was a kid and took care of him and gave him home and family. I think of course he loves them.

Butch:

Dude, really? I thought for sure it was staged. Like, right at some point where he says something particularly nasty, there was a pause and a lightning bolt struck right in the middle of the sky. I remember thinking “Nice touch. Little cheesy, but nice touch.” That was dumb luck?

Yesterday involved utter family chaos, homework until 830 (which, of course, he needs “help” with), ridiculous family politics and exactly no games. Yesterday was miserable.

I got nothing. But I’m gonna play this morning cuz fuck it.

Feminina:

Dude. Sympathies on the crushed soul. Sometimes life is just like that. Everyone gets needy all at the same time.

Play. Because remember the rules: it’s important to secure your own sanity before assisting others with their sanity crises! Or if not before, at least contemporaneous to. The calm, patient inner parent needs some you-time.

My soul is surprisingly uncrushed considering I just came back from the RMV–again. Remembered my glasses, passed the eye exam, and will receive a new ID with a brand new awkward photo of me in the mail in 6 to 8 weeks. Ha. I think actually she said about a week. But whatever.

I always get paranoid that I’m going to blink in those, so instead I open my eyes extra big while simultaneously trying not to bug them out, and they say “smile if you want to” and I think it’ll look weird if I intentionally make a stern face, but I don’t want to grin like I’m having a great time because that will just be inappropriate if I’m pulled over for reckless driving or something, so I end up with a wide-eyed, intense stare and an awkward half smile like I don’t know how faces work and am possibly an alien in an unconvincing human disguise. But I guess that’s pretty much standard for ID photos, so I can’t really complain.

Fucking faces! How do they work?

Go play. You need it. YOUR FAMILY NEEDS IT, because they need you to stay sane.

Do it for your family.

Butch:

Dear god, don’t they just all need attention at the same time? Usually right around the time I’m sitting down to play and/or drink.

Yes. Yes, the parent does need time. Yes. Which it will be unlikely to get tomorrow and the next day, what being the weekend, and you know how that shit goes. I’m hoping that this one will be a little smoother, as Junior has play practice all damn day tomorrow, but we’ll see.

And no, you can’t complain. If the concern you have is wide eyed, intense stare (which is kinda what you had when your emails came accompanied by a random photo of you) and not reminding yourself that you aged fifty-two years in the ten since your last photo, you’re winning at the game of life.

If only you could just tell them, “one crisis at a time, please! You–stifle your emotional issues for now, your brother’s already booked for this slot!”

Instead, on the contrary, a lot of times they seem to feed on each other. “He’s upset about something? SO AM I!!!!!”

That is actually kind of a good T shirt. It’s also probably about the only time I will ever make an Insane Clown Posse reference, so that’s notable.

Definitely play after the guy leaves.

Butch:

Dude, you have no idea how hard I try. “Look, I will talk to you when I’m finished helping your brother with his homework and don’t touch that and ok, I’ll help you brush your teeth and yes, that’s very nice you want to read but I’m busy right now with…something, shit, I forgot….oh right, homework, no, don’t get mad that I forgot about you…..”

It’s usually more “Oh you think HIS shit is important? Well, what if I break THIS?” “Oh, yeah? What if I throw THIS?” “Oh yeah? What if I pee all over THIS????”

Dude, I didn’t even catch that. You’re swearing and dropping ICP references before lunch. What did they do to you at the RMV?????